Japan's Sharp to exit Americas TV market after deep first quarter loss

A man sitting on a sofa looks at a Sharp Corp's Aquos TV at an electronics retailer in Tokyo, Japan, June 23, 2015.

/Yuya Shino

Japan's Sharp Corp on Friday announced it was exiting the TV business in the Americas to shore up its finances, after booking a deeper-than-expected quarterly loss on weak smartphone display sales.The company, which sought a bank-led bailout in May, said it would sell its TV manufacturing plant in Mexico and license its Aquos brand in the Americas to China's Hisense, effectively withdrawing from the region's TV market."Sharp has not been able to fully adapt to the intensifying market competition, which led to significantly lower profits compared to the initial projections for the previous fiscal year, and has been suffering from poor earnings performance," Sharp said in a statement explaining the TV deal.Osaka-based Sharp, which gains much of its revenue from liquid crystal displays and TV sets, has focused on high-end screens to protect profit margins and avoid directly competing with cheaper Chinese and South Korean rivals.But it has struggled to innovate sufficiently to keep commanding significant premiums. In addition to Chinese competitors, it has also faced strong competition from Japan Display Inc in smartphone screens. In May, Sharp sought a $1.9 billion bailout, its second major bank-led rescue in three years. In return for financing, Sharp promised to cut 5,000 jobs, or 10 percent of its global workforce, but investors and analysts called for a more drastic overhaul of its consumer electronics business.The company on Friday said it could not yet determine the financial impact of the Hisense deal. It reiterated its outlook to achieve 80 billion yen ($644.54 million) in operating profit in the current business year. For the April-June quarter, Sharp booked a 28.8 billion yen operating loss, compared with 4.7 billion yen profit a year prior. That was worse than the 21.2 billion yen average loss estimate of 14 analysts polled by .Its net loss deepened to 34 billion yen from 1.8 billion yen a year earlier. Shares of Sharp closed unchanged from the previous day ahead of the results, versus a 0.3 percent rise in the broader market. Its shares have fallen nearly 50 percent over the past year amid worries about the firm's long-term viability. (Reporting by Ritsuko Ando; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Christopher Cushing)